BOSTON -- It's not that the Boston Red Sox are intentionally hoarding prospects, it's just that they haven't found the right guy to trade them for.

While the Giancarlo Stanton and Troy Tulowitzki rumors -- key word, rumors -- are sure to zip around the internet faster than a picture of puppies licking ice cream this winter, the Red Sox are at least open to the idea of unloading their youth as they took to build their next great team with a target date of 2015.

"I don't think we've ever been unwilling to trade prospects," general manager Ben Cherington said on Tuesday. "It's entirely contextual. For the right player, yeah, of course we'd consider trading prospects. We just have to see."

Before getting excited over the faint idea of Stanton or Tulowitzki roaming Fenway Park, keep in mind that it might make more sense for the Red Sox to pursue a veteran starting pitcher (four of their five starters are 26 years old or younger).

Clay Buchholz, who turned 30 last week, is the only pitcher in the rotation who has made at least 50 career starts.

"Clearly there are some areas we'd like to add to this offseason and we have to figure out what we feel makes the most sense, whether that's trying to add through free agency or trades, weigh the cost and the expected return," Cherington said. "There are definitely times when a trade makes more sense than free agency, and there are times where it's vice versa. I think we've just got to get in the offseason and see what those opportunities are."

The Red Sox are loaded with young starting pitchers, third basemen and catchers.

After calling up many of their prospects this season, a few of them were then taken off top prospect lists, but the Red Sox still have five players in the top-100, according to MLB.com:

They'll have to decide either to stick with Christian Vazquez as their No. 1 catcher and find a way to utilize Blake Swihart, who is hitting .297 over Double-A and Triple-A this season while throwing out 48 percent of attempted base-stealers, or trade one of them.

At third base, they have Will Middlebrooks and Garin Cecchini, though Cecchini is playing some corner outfield in Pawtucket.

The Red Sox aren't expected to make any more trades until the off-season, though they could technically still deal somebody before August 31 if a player were to pass through waivers. Considering they don't have anybody with an egregious contract on their roster, it's unlikely they'd be able to pass anybody through.

"We're not looking to make trades (before Aug. 31)," Cherington said. "If something comes our way, we'll certainly look at it. But we're not actively out there trying to make trades."

Cherington views the final six weeks as a good time to measure the strengths of the current roster.

"Despite a lot that hasn't gone right for us, the way I see it, the rest of the season, this is our season," he said. "The games we have left our important. It's actually lucky, I think, that we're facing so many teams that are in it. Hopefully that means we'll face real lineups down the strech, and that's an opportunity for us to get a better look at pitching and the whole team.

"It doesn't look like there will be too many meaningless games on the schedule. That's a good thing for us. We get a chance to evaluate players in that kind of environment in meaningful games and have a say in the outcome, even if it's not us playing in October. That's good for us. We want to get as much out of the rest of the season as we can."